This invention relates to a chewing tobacco product, and more particularly to a product and a method for making the same in which the tobacco is a loose leaf product having small, uniform leaf size with virtually no objectionable stem parts.
Chewing tobacco has been manufactured in various forms for many years, such as pressed plugs, rolled twists, and loose leaf tobacco, formerly called "scrap tobacco". The name "scrap" probably evolved from the origin of the tobacco used in the manufacture of the end product. Originally, some of the tobacco was obtained from other tobacco manufacturing processes such as cigar trimmings. With the advent of homogenized wrapper leaf, cigar trimmings became unsuitable for use in loose leaf chewing tobacco. Therefore, it became necessary to manufacture "scrap" tobacco from virgin air-cured cigar tobacco. Eventually, the term "scrap tobacco" fell into disuse and was replaced by the term "loose leaf" tobacco.
Traditionally, loose leaf tobacco has been made from non-uniform pieces of tobacco, including not only leaf parts, but also stems and veins in various forms.
Essentially two approaches to the production of a commercially acceptable product have been taken: (1) the incorporation of the stem and vein parts into the final product; and (2) the removal of these part from the final product. The latter approach involves primarily mechanical treatment of tobacco leaves, as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,176,511 to Rundell in which the stems are torn from the leaf web; 2,398,450 to Rundell in which the stem is separated and cut from the leaf blade; and 4,237,909 to Jenkins, Jr. et al, wherein the stems are ripped away from the leaf lamina by rollers. In the former approach, various techniques have been employed to incorporate the stem and vein parts in a tobacco mixture. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,411,514 to Hind et al discloses a tobacco product in which stems and veins are passed between rollers to break up or crush the bulky rigid parts. To facilitate an improved, less harsh, more aromatic taste, a slower burn and reduced heat for smoking tobaccos, an aqueous solution of ammonium phosphate is added to the parts either before, during or after rolling thereof. U.S. Pat. No. 3,425,425 to Hind discloses a tobacco product in which stems and veins, first treated with a solution containing a water-soluble carbohydrate, are puffed or expanded, and then mixed or incorporated into a conventional tobacco product, with or without subsequent threshing.
In general, when the prior art refers to stemming (destemming), it concerns primarily the removal of essentially the main stem only. The products, even if cut, consequently retain the major veins which the public often perceives, in a negative way, as being "stems." Indeed, in the prior art processes the tobacco is normally threshed, i.e. passed through a hammer-mill type device having brackets thereon which causes the tobacco leaves to break into pieces which tend to parallel the veins, and thereby leave the veins generally intact.
The inclusion of stem and vein parts in these various forms of smoking-type tobacco products may have been acceptable, if only for economic reasons. However, the use of such parts in chewing tobacco products has often met with adverse reaction. U.S. Pat. No. 421,373 to Wilson discloses the shredding, splitting, cutting, crushing or pulping of stems after softening in water. The patent proposed a method of stem inclusion in which the stems were first ground to a powder and then sprinkled on successive layers of tobacco during packing or casing. During this method, a dampening solution was added to impart flavoring and moisture to the final product. The Wilson process is similar to that of U.S. Pat. No. 1,407,274 to Hibbert in which, in a method of making plug and chewing tobacco products, the objective was to maintain uniformity in moisture and consistency. This was accomplished by incorporating in the tobacco a mixture of glycols with water, or glycols alone. And in U.S. Pat. No. 214,638 to Emery, a tobacco-treating method and resultant product was disclosed for fine-cut chewing tobacco or plug tobacco. The disclosed process for making the chewing tobacco involved dipping or spraying the tobacco with a sweetener, removing the stems from the leaves, pressing the destemmed leaves into cakes, and then cutting the cakes into fine threads, strips, or shreds. The process for making plug tobacco involved dampening or steaming the leaves, removing the stems, saturating the destemmed leaves with sweetener, drying the saturated leaves and then cutting and/or pressing the leaves into the desired shape.
Tobacco products made by the above-described processes suffer from many undesirable qualities. For example, many people do not like the "fluffiness" and large, non-uniform leaves found in loose leaf. In many present loose leaf products, there is found an unacceptable amount and degree of stems and piece sizes inadvertently left in the final product. For these reasons, many people will use another type of tobacco product such as plug tobacco, even though they do not find acceptable the hardness of the plug product. There is therefore a need for a loose leaf tobacco product with a smaller, more uniform leaf size which would appeal to both loose leaf chewers and plug users. In addition, such a desired product, unlike that of the prior art, should be easy to use and contain few, if any, objectionable stems or veins, and therefore be appealing to both loose leaf and plug users.